Day 17: Minnesota Twins

The entire schedule of when team recaps will be.

Team: Minnesota Twins

2007 Regular Season Record: 79-83

Cost per Win: $71,439,500 / 79 = $904,297 per win

2007 Season Recap: Not a whole lot went right for the Twins in 2007. After winning the AL Central in 2006 the Twins found themselves with a losing record for the first time since 2000 and many question marks in the personnel area. When the season was all over the Twins were 17 games back of the Cleveland Indians, the winners of the AL Central. As a team the Twins had a .264 batting average and were 12th in the AL with 718 runs. Their pitching staff put up a 4.15 ERA which isn’t that bad but when your offense isn’t producing any runs it is too high to win the majority of your games.

The offense was seriously lacking in 2007 and a lot of that falls on the high profile members of the team. As a team none of the regular starters hit over .293 and that was by Joe Mauer who played in only 109 games. One of most notable of the starts performances was Torii Hunter. Hunter made $12 million last season and hit .287 with 28 home runs. This isn’t terrible but for the highest played offensive player on your team you would want better numbers. Another player that sticks out is Nick Punto who played in 150 games mainly at third base. Punto hit only .210 in 2007 and only 25 RBIs. Punto his .295 last season so for the Twins sake I hope this season was just a fluke.

The pitching for the Twins wasn’t much better but that has a lot to do with the fact that they didn’t produce many runs and the pitchers had to work real hard to keep things close. Johan Santana is their biggest arm and he ended up with a record of 15 and 13 even though he had an ERA of only 3.33. This was Santana’s highest ERA since 2001 and his lowest win total since 2003. This all led to frustration for Santana and is probably part of the reason he is actively being marketed on the trade market. Carlos Silva has 13 wins in 2007 but he also had 14 losses. Santana and Silva were the only Twins pitchers with more than 9 wins. Closer Joe Nathan also had 37 saves and only 4 blown saves. Nathan has become a very good closer and would have a lot more saves if the Twins would have been ahead more often.

Key Free Agents: CF Torii Hunter, SP Carlos Silva, 5 other Outfielders; Hunter is by far the biggest loss but the Twins couldn’t really afford him next season, he has already signed with the Angels. The Twins are also shopping Johan Santana pretty aggressively had he will be a major loss when he is gone. The Twins have made it pretty clear that 2007 is going to be a rebuilding year.

Offseason Needs: The Twins have a lot of needs all over the place. They are really short on depth in the outfield so some young talent is needed if they are truly in rebuilding mode. There is also a hole at second base. The Twins have added Mike Lamb and Adam Everett to solidify the rest of their infield and hopefully give that bad offense a boost.

Prediction for the 2008 season: Things don’t look good for the Twins. The Tigers are going to be great next season and the Indians will also have a good record. That means that the Twins will most likely be getting beat up a lot this season. The Royals will be bad again so the Twins will get some wins from them but it would be a small miracle for the Twins to have a winning record. With the right young talent thought the Twins could be a fun team to watch but I don’t think they will get a lot of wins.